From Ray Hunt" “Spurs are no different than a bat or a crop, or a whip. It’s an aid to help get discipline. The horse should not be afraid of your crop, or your spurs, or your bat or your whip or your romal. He should not be afraid of it.
But the way most people use it is, ‘You better be afraid or I'll hurt you.’
Then he is thinking wrong. A horse doesn’t want to get hurt, no more than you or I. You’re going to have to do something to make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. But you should never do anything to hurt him on purpose."